Philip Maddocks: America urged to enter into a contract with Newt Gingrich

Friday

Aug 20, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 20, 2010 at 8:14 PM

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Republican leaders urged America to enter into a contract with Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. The contract, they said, would represent a new beginning for the country and a revolutionary commitment to Mr. Gingrich’s own ambitions.

Philip Maddocks

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Republican leaders urged America to enter into a contract with Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. The contract, they said, would represent a new beginning for the country and a revolutionary commitment to Mr. Gingrich’s own ambitions.

“The safest thing for America would be to have a provision passed this fall that said it will do nothing of any kind without Mr. Gingrich’s prior approval,” said one congressman, who added that he is pushing Mr. Gingrich to consider a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. “I mean the fact is, everywhere I go — and I’ve been in 10 states in the last 14 days — businesspeople say to me over and over again, ‘I will create no new jobs in this environment because the uncertainty is too frightening.’ This contract with Gingrich will not only put an end to our national uncertainty, it will go a long way to advancing Newt’s own peace of mind.”

Unlike the Contract with America, which Mr. Gingrich helped author and introduce prior to the 1994 Congressional election, America’s contract with Mr. Gingrich would involve none of the legislative hurdles of the earlier pact and would be guided instead by a belief that an America more transparently and unequivocally beholden to Mr. Gingrich would not be suffering its current indecision over what to think about building a mosque at Ground Zero, legalizing gay marriage, or buying Newt’s book, “To Save America.”

Conservative leaders, who touted America’s contract with Mr. Gingrich as a job creator for “one of the most important segments of the U.S. economy,” said the text of the document had been culled from many of the 20 books authored by the Republican Party leader, and would provide the country with a bottomless fount of Mr. Gingrich’s thoughts and his stories of freedom and faith.

The contract itself details the actions America promises to take on behalf of Mr. Gingrich and his numerous ideas, including providing him with exclusive rights to “Eye of the Tiger,” unlimited access to a bank of microphones, and a Smart car equipped with a gun rack.

The Republican congressmen said the former House speaker — who now sits atop an empire of policy groups, political networks and media enterprises with 1.5 million online members — has vast intellectual and financial resources that could all be put to good work for the country if America chooses to enter into a contract with Mr. Gingrich.

They pointed out that his policy center raised more money ($8.1 million) in the last quarter of last year than the political action committees of Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney combined and could provide America with a roadmap on how to fund-raise itself out of its current budget deficit.

The leaders says they are concerned that if America does not enter into a contract with Mr. Gingrich soon, the country’s teetering economy might tumble back into recession. The “Contract with Newt,” they argued, would demonstrate to the world America’s commitment to addressing its trillion-dollar budget deficit and Mr. Gingrich’s booming popularity.

On “This Week” on ABC, Mr. Gingrich — who entered the studio to the pulsating beat of “Eye of the Tiger,” with lights flashing and thousands of well-wishers shrieking his name — said, “We think that’s the responsible thing to do because we need to make sure we can show the world” that America is “willing as a country to start making some progress to committing its capital and its faith to Newt.”

Most Republicans and some Democrats in Congress strongly agree and have pledged to launch an all-out effort to get America to enter into a contract with Mr. Gingrich at whatever price.

“People frequently begin a conversation with, ‘Newt called me and said X and thought we should do Y,’ ” said a Republican pollster. “He’s a former speaker, former third-in-line to the president. The country needs to tap into his energy and ideas and its bank account.”

A Republican consultant who has advised Mr. Gingrich described the former congressman as “more powerful than the entire country.”

“He has a better e-mail list, he has better ideas, he’s a better communicator and he has a better gun rack than anyone in America,” the consultant said.

Mr. Gingrich — whose slogan in support of his contract proposal is “Pay Here, Pay Now, Worry Less” — said he frequently calls on himself for advice. “In less than an hour, I usually have a three-page memo,” he said. “I have come to realize that I’m good on the ideas and on the tactics.”

His allies believe that America is in a “sweet spot” because Mr. Gingrich’s current activities would serve the country well whether he ran for president or not. They warn, however, that these dynamics could change in a hurry.

“Newt’s business is like any other,” cautioned one supporter, “As Newt says on his website, if you believe it is bad, you will convince it to go away. I don’t know what more people have to hear.”